Paradoxical Paramour
by colours.of.music
Summary: The team is back on another Job, and while the stakes aren't necesarily higher, the temper of a certain architect definitely is. A/A ...rated 'T' for over use of swear words. *completed, although I haven't posted all the chapters*
1. Chapter 1

**I saw Inception a couple of weeks ago, and have since been obsessed with reading Fanfictions about it. I've written a couple before this, but I didn't like them nearly enough to bother to continuing them...but I figured I might as well post this one, because I've been working on it so long. Originally, it was supposed to be a one-shot: I had some inspiration from another story where someone mentioned Arthur bought Ariadne flowers, and I though that was a cute concept...except I had to throw in a twist of _some _sort. **

**Anyway, if you like the story, review it and tell me, and I'll add more chapters (which I've actually already written...although they don't tie in all that well '^ ^). **

**Finally: I love the Arthur/Ariadne pairing; so much, in fact, that I've considered buying the entire production from Mr. Nolan. Unfortunately, I haven't yet, so I'm required by law to say I don't own _Inception._ Yet. (;**

**postscript: I was editing this at 11 pm on a Friday night, which is my way of say I was very tired while doing so. If you notice any mistakes, please tell me and I'll be sure to go back and fix them. Thank you!  
**

* * *

When Ariadne stepped into the warehouse house, it took her moment to find her desk, buried under the bunches of flowers. Arthur was bent over his desk, taking down notes on something on his laptop, Yusuf was typing something on HIS laptop, his safety goggles still covering his eyes-clearly he'd only just finished up with an experiment-and Eames was tossing a baseball around, leaning back in his chair with his feet up on his desk, a file folder with the mark's information on it laying in his lap.

No one looked up when she stopped in surprise, staring at her desk in horror.

"Oh. My. God." They all looked up to gauge her reaction, and Arthur gave her a faint smile. Thankfully, she didn't notice it.

"Who did this? My... I left all my sketches out-" She rushed over to her desk and began to move the flowers, brushing fallen leaves and petals away from her workplace. None of the sketches were ruined, but now her entire workspace was a mess of petals and leaves and random flowers. Another moment, and she was sneezing uncontrollably, her eyes watering and her nose already starting to go red. "I'm allergic to pollen. Was this supposed to be a joke? Eames, was this you?" Every statement she made was accented by a sneeze, and she only sounded more furious each time.

Finally, she was forced to stumble away, completely. Arthur stood up to help her, looking completely out of sorts. Ariadne wasn't used to seeing the point man looking so...stunned.

Eames beat Arthur to her, and pulled her farther away from the followers before giving her an apologetic look. "Oh, Darling, I didn't know." He miraculously pulled a tissue out-almost from thin air, and she snatched it from him with a glare. "I wanted to give you something for Graduation."

She gave him a scathing look. "Eames. I said no presents."

He shrugged. "Couldn't resist."

Arthur interrupted them, gently taking Ariadne's arm. "Do you need to get to the hospital or anything?"

"No, no." She murmured quickly. "I have some antihistamines back at my apartment."She sighed and rubbed the nose with the tissue again. After a moment, she gave Eames another look and said gently "Look. If you really want to give me a graduation present, you could clear off my desk." In all honesty, she welcomed the idea that he'd cared enough to get her a present, and she was upset she wouldn't get to enjoy it. "I'm...I'm sorry, I should have thanked you. This was really nice, but..." she gave him a weak smile, and he returned it with a grin.

"Understandable, love. No more flowers for you." they shared another quick smile, and then Ariadne hurried out of the building, her nose still sniffling.

The moment she was out of range, Eames turned to Arthur and snarled "Way to go, Darling." before going to clean up the flowers. Arthur followed him, looking sheepish. They quickly swept the desk clear of debris, while Eames complained. "You're lucky I took that fall for you. You should have known she was allergic to flowers before you went out and bought six dozen." Arthur didn't reply, just waited for Eames to finish. "You're the bloody point man. How could you miss that little fact, hm...? Didn't you go through her medical records?"

Arthur shrugged. "It fell between the cracks." But he still felt horrible. She'd looked so upset.

"How does an allergy fall between the cracks? Maybe a stubbing of one's toe back in the fifth grade, but an allergy?" He threw his hands up in disgust. "It's a good thing she wasn't bloody well allergic to-"

"Eames." Arthur said. "Shut up."

"Maybe I'm not bloody well done-"

"You didn't have to say this was your fault." Arthur reminded him. "Don't start in on me for something that was your choice. "

Eames considered this for a moment, then shrugged agreeably, his dramatic display of anger fading.

They finished cleaning her workspace in silence, scooping petals into the trashcan. Eames wouldn't let them toss out the flowers Arthur had bought for her, so he moved them all over to Cobb's desk, as though planning some pointless practical joke. "Should I write 'From your secret admirer' on a card?"

"No, it'd be a waste of time. He'd know you put them there."

"To true, to true." Eames looked wistful for a moment, then shrugged and grinned. "Well, it was a fun thought."

Arthur turned back to Ariadne's desk, and was stunned to notice, sticking out of loose pile of drawings, an envelope marked with his name. Without saying anything to Eames, he slipped it out from under the pile and opened it. It was only sealed in such a way that the flap was tucked into the rest of the envelope.

Inside was a dozen or so pieces of sketching paper, covered in notes, a few tiny sketches in the margins. He read over a few lines of notes quickly, and it dawned on him: she was designing him a dreamscape. At last, thats what he gathered from the hastily scribbled "Would he prefer ionic or roman columns?" and "To many trees? Is he a tree person?"

He shoved the papers back in the envelope and stared at it as though it were on fire. After a moment, he pushed it back beneath her sketches and turned to Eames. "If Ariadne gets back before I do-" He stopped himself and shook his head.

"Where're you going?"

"Out." Arthur grabbed his coat and slipped out of the warehouse.

* * *

She looked slightly more presentable returning to the warehouse than she had leaving it. They were all the exact same way she'd found them before. It was as though nothing had ever happened, although, now that she noticed it, Eames had lost interest in the baseball, and was instead reading a letter, the envelope tucked behind the papers, the file about the mark completely forgotten.

She went over to her desk, and breathed deeply; no lingering pollen disrupted her allergies. With a smile, she placed her messenger bag on the floor near her desk, pulled her latest model of the dream level she was working on down from a shelf and stared at it in concentration.  
She only looked up when she sensed Arthur get up from his desk and head over towards her. She smiled brightly when he stopped at her desk, but dragged a stray design for a building over the model of the level. This was Yusuf's level, and though she knew Arthur wouldn't look at it, she had become accustomed to hiding her work from those for which it wasn't intended.

"Did you need something?" She asked brightly.

He sighed and placed a small box on her desk. "I know you said you didn't want any gifts, but I'd already gotten you something, and since Mr. Eames already opened the door, I figured I might as well give you my present."

From across the room, Eames snorted, obviously listening in on their conversation.

Ariadne picked up the box gingerly and sighed. "You really didn't have to." Inside, she was beyond thrilled, even though she hadn't exactly wanted anything from them.

"It was nothing." Again, Eames snorted after his comment, but didn't say anything. Arthur turned and headed back to his desk, listening as Ariadne unwrapped the beautiful silk scarf. He made it to his desk and sat down before she had completely unwrapped it, so he was already immersed in the information on his laptop when she cried out in surprise.

"Oh!" He glanced up and smiled; she'd taken the scarf from the box and was rubbing it gently on her cheek. "Arthur, this is beautiful." She untied the scarf she was wearing from around her neck and slipped the new one on. If she'd been looking carefully, she would have noticed it match her outfit perfectly; there was no way he'd gotten it in advance.

She jumped up and circled around her desk, hurried to his and wrapped him up in a hug. "Thank you!"

From across the room, Eames began to protest. "What, I don't get a hug?"

"Sorry." She smiled apologetically and slipped over to Eames's desk and wrapped herself up in his hug, as well. "The flowers were very thoughtful, even if they were …" she trailed off and Eames smirked.

"Nothing to sneeze at?" He offered, an eyebrow cocked, as though he knew he was going to pay for that comment. He did.

Across the room, Arthur didn't hear their banter. He was still locked in the ghost of Ariadne's embrace. After a few moments, Ariadne returned to her desk, and shifted a few papers, moving the designs off the model. There was silence for a few minutes, then Ariadne looked up, puzzled. "Has anyone seen my-?"

Eames glanced up at her, the envelope and papers still clutched his hands. "What?" He said, innocently. She noticed his amused smile first, then what he was holding.

"Eames..." she said, slowly. A warning. "Could I please get that back...? "

"I don't know..." he waved it around in the air for a moment. "I think it's going to cost you."

Arthur glanced up finally, noticed what it was that Eames was holding and ducked his head back down, looking like he'd never seen the envelope in his life. "Give it back to her, Eames." He said, emotionlessly. To Ariadne, it only seemed like he wanted Eames to return it so they'd stop talking and he could concentrate.

"Now, now, Arthur. If I were you-no, no, other way around. If you were me right now, I don't think you'd much want to give this back to her, either."

Ariadne fumed, and Arthur shrugged, like he had no idea what it was that Eames was holding. When Eames stood up, Ariadne followed his lead and said "Eames." again, more warning in her voice.

"Arthur, darling, you really must see this." He strode across the way to Arthur's desk, and Ariadne slipped around hers and made for his as well, determined to cut Eames off. Eames tossed the envelope and papers down on Arthur's desk before she could stop him, then moved slightly so he was in the way, and she couldn't get across to pick them up.

Arthur picked them up carefully, flicked his eyes over them so fast he didn't have a time to read anything-he knew she was watching him, and he wanted to her feel satisfied with the fact that he hadn't read it.

As he handed it back, he noticed, once again, his name on the envelope, and pretended to be surprised. "It's addressed to me." He said in a careful monotone, pulling his hand away before she could snatch it up.

"It's um-plans. For your dream level." She said, quickly.

They both knew it wasn't. The plans were much too big for a small envelope such as this, and it was no longer even in the paper-stages of the design, anyway. She'd already built a model weeks before.

In fact, they all knew it wasn't, since they'd all seen it-although Arthur wasn't about to let Ariadne know that-but no one said anything to question this statement. Ariadne snatched the envelope back and Eames took her wrist up in his and daintily plucked it from her fingertips. "Ah, ah, ah." He waved it in her face, and jerked it away when she made a grab for it. "You don't get this back until either Arthur sees it or I get one of my own." He grinned cheekily at her and said "I could use a nice, custom-made dream world like this where I didn't have to worry about getting shot or beaten up or-"

Ariadne glared at him as he retreated back to his desk. Then she turned pleadingly to Arthur and gave him an incredulous look. "Help?"

"Ariadne, I'd love to but I've got a lot of work to-"

She planted her hands on his desk and stared him down, the picture of a woman on a mission. "If we don't get that back, you're going to listen to Eames read it aloud until he gets bored with it."

"What is it?" He gave her a sideways look and she blushed, immediately flustered. "It's-it's designs."

"With my name on it?"

"Yes." She said, shortly. She was about to say more when Eames interrupted with a peal of laughter.

"Yes, Ariadne, Darling, you should include _lots _of Libraries. No need to question yourself on that one." He flipped to another page and leaned back in his chair, looking entertained. He glanced up an added "If you're not busy, I'd like a dreamscape with lots of bars. And strip clubs. My subconscious will fill in the rest."

Ariadne went back to fuming, and Arthur decided to see if he could get her to open up a little more. "What's this about designing Eames's fantasy dreamscape?"

"You don't want to know." Ariadne groaned, before stomping over to Eames's desk. She picked up the file folder of the mark he had been studying, and when he dodged to keep the designs away from her, she smacked him over the head with the mark's information. "Give it back."

"Are you going to show it to Arthur?" He lowered his voice so it didn't carry. Ariadne shook her head.

"I can't." she hissed.

"Why not?"

"You know very well why not." She replied, holding out her hand. Eames gave her a long look before returning the designs. She dropped the mark's file back on his desk and turned to go back to her own. Eames stopped her by grabbing her wrist. She immediately resisted, thinking he was trying to grab the designs back. After a moment, she determined this wasn't the case, since he'd leaned in confidentially, about to tell her something he obviously didn't want Arthur to hear.

"Ariadne, darling. The flowers this morning? They weren't from me-only you were so flustered about them that I couldn't leave you to the impression that _he'd_ forgotten your allergy. His bloody know-it-all persona would be in jeopardy." He smiled sarcastically and added "He was upset they didn't work out, and he went out and got you that scarf."

She didn't want to believe him at first, but she couldn't doubt his sincerity. Or the serious expression on his face. He let go of her wrist and she stepped away, giving the designs a long look. When she finally glanced up at him again, she smiled sadly and shook her head.

"I can't." He frowned, and she continued before he could interrupt. "I get that... he wanted to give me something for graduation, and it's perfectly sweet of him but this-" she raised the designs half-heartedly and said flatly "This is border line stalking."

"Well," Eames said cheerfully. "You didn't design them if you didn't want him to see them."

She opened her mouth but couldn't think of a reply.

Eames was right.

Goddammit.

She turned around and headed back to her desk, layed the envelope on the very edge and tried to ignore it. She turned her attention to the model and forced herself to concentrate on the schematics of it. The envelope taunted her. How the hell was she supposed to present it to him? "_Oh, Arthur, I wanted to thank you, so I designed a dream world..." "I thought you might like-" "I couldn't think of anything else to give you, and I know it's not permanent, but I figured it'd be a nice place to get away from Eames..."_

Finally, she picked up the envelope and crossed the room to the lawn chairs and the PASIV. She called out "I'm going under for a few minutes," and Eames looked up. She gave him a knowing look and waved the envelope lazily, then shot a pointed glance at Arthur, who hadn't even seemed to notice her.

She layed the envelope down, pricked her wrist with the needle, and depressed the button at the center of the PASIV, then clutched the envelope to her chest and watched the world fade.

* * *

Eames waited until she was asleep, then tried to come up with something that he could do to help her. He'd known right away what it was that she wanted him to do. All it took was a sharp glance at the point man and a gesture with the designs.

The question was, How did he get the point man to follow her under? He glanced around the room and bit the inside of his cheek, thinking.

After a second, with no clear plan in mind, he stood up, made his way across the room to her and pulled a needle from the PASIV. He was about to prick it into his wrist, when Arthur looked up. Perfect timing. "What are you doing?"

"Going under." Eames said, as though he didn't need any other reason.

Arthur gave him a questioning look. What was so urgent, he wondered that Eames couldn't wait five minutes to tell Ariadne? "Why?"

"Well, she's set the PASIV for ten minutes, and I don't want to wait that long to ask her about something she wrote in that letter to you-" He caught himself, like he had said to much, and bit his cheek again, managing to keep his face composed. It was a weak excuse, but Arthur fell for it.

"It wasn't a let-" This time, it was Arthur who caught himself.

And not in time. Eames's eyebrows shot up, and he grinned. "So you did see it."

"And?" Arthur turned back to his laptop, not wanting to discuss this with Eames. Eames, however, seemed to have other plans.

"Well, you can't just pretend drawing out those designs for you wasn't completely adorable. And after your stupid mistake with those bloody _flowers_-"

Arthur tried to ignore him, but wasn't able to hold off for as long as he had hoped. "Mr. Eames, I understand that you find this whole enterprise _extremely _amusing, but if Ariadne didn't want to show me that dreamscape, then I suppose she has a right to not be forced to."

"Who said anything about seeing the dreamscape?" Eames tilted his head and his expression said _Got ya. _

"Mr. Eames-"

"Oh, just go check it out."

"What?" Arthur's forehead wrinkled in confusion, then he realized why she was under. Eames placed the needle back in the PASIV and raised an eyebrow. Arthur's jaw dropped. "You can't be ser-"

"Arthur. Just accept your gift like a good little point man, thank her profusely and kiss her. Mmkay?" Eames returned to his desk, looked at his watch and said "And you'd better get on it, considering by our time she's been alone there for about...half an hour." He smiled mirthlessly and said "you're very good at keeping a lady waiting."

Arthur sighed heavily, closed his laptop and went over to the PASIV. He didn't want to look at Eames, fearing his friend would flash him a thumbs up, and that was honestly, the last thing he wanted to see at the moment. All he needed was some obnoxious man's encouragement to go after a girl.

He slipped a needle into his wrist after claiming his own lawn chair, and closed his eyes.

* * *

He didn't think he'd ever been in such an intricate dreamscape. He could immediately pick out her influences, from quite a few major cities. All together, she'd created a stunning mix of modern and ancient, classic and new age. And it fit. That was the most unbelievable part of the whole thing.

Better than that: it fit _him. _If he'd had to pick a place to retire...well, if anything like this existed on Earth, he'd spend as long as it took to find it.

He was standing on the corner of an empty street, unsure of where to go from there. He wanted to find Ariadne, but he had no clue as to which way she might have gone. He cupped his hands over his mouth and called her name, then realized something that made the place even more curious: Sound didn't echo. He had no idea how she might have done it, but his voice didn't carry any farther than the end of the block.

He'd never find her at this rate.

Arthur sighed and glanced off down every street, before picking one at random, and heading down it. At the end of the block, he was still alone, and the place was still as silent as ever...although, a comfortable silence. A full sort of silence.

He continued to walk the way he was going, figuring she must have designed the place like a maze, and generally you found your way to _somewhere_ in a maze, if you picked one direction and just walked. Of course, usually you found that somewhere faster if you had no destination in mind...

At the center of the city was a park, and he knew right away this was where she'd be. While it was a perfectly nice park, it seemed to be something she would prefer more than he would. She'd made her own little nook for herself in his world. He wouldn't realize this until after they'd woken up, however, so he only took a moment to admire the blooming cherry trees she'd added to it, before slipping into the park and searching for her.

She was on a bench with a sketchbook in hand, drawing the simple, circular mazes that had landed her the job in the first place. When he sat down next to her, she glanced up at him, layed the sketchbook on her lap and smiled.

"Eames understood what I was trying to say. I thought I'd be sitting here for hours-"

Arthur shook his head. "He pounced on me the second you went under."

"Yeah," She ducked her head. "Well, I guess he didn't tell you that I designed-"

"This dreamscape for me." Arthur nodded and glanced out at the city surrounding them. "Yeah, he told me."

She was watching him carefully, waiting for his opinion. When he didn't say anything else, she became to fill the silence, worried that he didn't like it. "I know it's kind of useless, since it won't last or anything, but I couldn't think of anything else, and you've been so helpful from the beginning, and then...I just wanted to give you something, to know how much I appreciated it all-"

"Ariadne." He interrupted her, fearing if he didn't that she would continue ceaselessly. "It's...stunning."

"Thank you," she lowered her head and wouldn't meet his gaze. Was she bothered by the praise?

"More than stunning." He added. "It's the most beautiful dreamscape I've ever seen...Thank you."

This time, she lifted her gaze to his and smiled. He returned it and they sat for another moment in silence, before he gestured at the sketchbook. "Mazes?"

"I was bored." She offered, before flipping through the pages, showing maze after maze after maze... she'd been at this for at least an hour. "I wanted to do something simple, since it won't last."

He nodded knowingly and she set the sketchbook back down.

"Eames told me about the flowers." She said, suddenly. He lowered his gaze and smiled, unsure of how else to react. She tilted her head till she was in his line of sight again and smiled teasingly. "Thank you, though. But next time, I recommend flowers in the dream world-I can keep the allergies at bay." She picked up a fallen petal from a cherry tree and flicked it into the open air, watching it spin its way towards the ground.

"Why did you build it?"

She looked flustered. "I told you. I wanted to thank you for-"

"Me and no one else?" He raised an eyebrow. She shrugged, picked up another cherry petal and began to tear it up.

"Cobb wouldn't have liked the idea, I don't know the first thing about what Yusuf would want in a dreamscape, and Eames-I don't even want to design the sort of things Eames would want in his personal dream world."

They both smirked and Ariadne let the pieces of this petal flutter to the ground as well.

"Well, thank you." He said, carefully. She caught his gaze and sighed.

"Okay, it was more than that." She spoke so quietly, with her head ducked to avoid looking at him. "You've been...I've spent the better part of the last few months with you always on my mind. It's...I mean, you're...I know the whole idea seems stalkerish, that I designed you a world-"

He smiled. "You're the architect." His heart was racing.

"I know, but...Arthur." Here, she gave him a pleading look. "I wanted to-to tell you how much you-how important you are to-to me." She glanced up at him, her face tinged pink. She began to rip up another petal out of nervousness.

She stopped when he took her hands in his, which was his intention. Finally, she met his gaze, her eyes wavering. "I guess I needed something spectacular to tell you..."

"And to think, all I got you to commemorate the occasion was a scarf and flowers."

"The occasion-?" She didn't get much farther than that, because he had leaned in, lifted her chin ever so slightly and pressed his lips to hers, reminiscent of the experience on the second level of Fischer's dream. Ariadne didn't want to compare the two-couldn't compare the two.

She tugged her hands out of his and reached up to slip her hand over his shoulder, running her fingers over the soft fibers of his suit. His hand rested softly on her cheek, cooling the flames she could feel still burning against them from her tragically failed confession of love. And his lips... words couldn't describe his lips.

When he finally pulled away from her, she remained still for another moment, savouring the kiss. She glanced up at his, smiling, and said "Jesus, Arthur. I might have to build you another city, just for that."

"Make that a third." And with a tilt of her chin, they were at it again.

* * *

Eames watched over the two dreamers, grinning shamelessly. "See, you two lovebirds?" He said sarcastically "If it weren't for me, you'd be stuck off in your own little worlds..." He stared to turn away, then noticed the small smile that had appeared on Ariadne' face.

"Good boy, Arthur." He smirked, then added "I just hope you thanked her first."

* * *

**Mmm...Review? If so, Thank You!**

** ...If not, well, thanks for reading it. (; **


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, I gave in and added more.**

**And then I gave in some more, and instead of doing my homework, I went ahead and spent all weekend finishing up the story. So now I just have to submit the chapters and...yeah. But it's all be written, so I won't stop adding to the story half way through. Yay? :D**

**Anyway. Since the first chapter was more of a one-shot, the next chapters are slightly darker and more centered around a Job than a silly little mini-plot. So..if you notice the rather obvious shift in the tone of the story, sorry! D: I tried to make a smooth transistion over, but I don't know if I did a very good job, and I couldn't very well start another story, since this one references the first chapter. So, yeah. No hard feelings? **

**Also, forgive me for the long chapters. I get carried away when I'm writing. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but still... Whoops! **

**Anyhow, this author's note is much longer than it should be, so I'm just going to finish up by saying I don't own _Inception._ When I do, I'll be sure to write one, chapter-long authors note gloating about that fact. :D**

* * *

They pretended as though nothing had happened. Arthur came around first, clearly just having left the dream early, via suicide. At least, that must have been the case, since there was still another thirty or so seconds on the timer. Eames gave him a puzzled glance, wanting to know why he'd woken himself up. Arthur only offered him a knowing smile, and returned to his desk. Moments later, Ariadne was awake, wearing an expression like she'd just finished designing a particularly complicated dream level; she went over to her own desk. As a result, when Cobb walked in about half an hour later, everyone was working under the illusion that they had been at it all afternoon. If the extractor noticed anything amiss, he didn't say anything.

Arthur repeatedly shot glances at the young architect as he worked. She was completely engaged in the model she was working; clearly the plane level, since that was what she was holding, staring at intently from different angles. She caught his eye after a few minutes, and smiled, but she reserved other interaction until nearly several hours later, after everyone had headed back home. It was around twelve, and then only sounds in the warehouse were the faint clickings of the keys of Arthur's laptop, and the small "Hmm" noises Ariadne made to herself whenever she tried to rearrange something that didn't suit itself to her liking.

It was around this time that Arthur looked up and stretched. Ariadne, sensing movement across the warehouse did the same, her joints popping from sudden use. They both rubbed their eyes-almost simultaneously—but Ariadne was the first to speak. "Going home any time soon?"

"Doubt it." Arthur suppressed a yawn and closed his eyes, which burned from staring at the screen of his laptop for so long. He gave them another quick rub, although it didn't help much.

Ariadne spoke through a yawn: "I really want to finish this model up before I go back to the hotel but I'm—" she shook her head to wake herself up a little "—so tired. Jeeze." Another shake of her head at the massive size of the yawn and a quick roll of her shoulders.

"You should probably head back now, before you're too tired to walk."

"Right." She nodded, but thought better of it. She doubted she'd be able to make it back to the hotel in this condition, and certainly not without running the risk of running into some unsavory characters bound to be about at this hour. "Actually, I think I'll stick around. I have to finish this model, anyway…" She looked at it, but couldn't focus on details. Her mind wandered and she sighed once, then gave up, and crossed the warehouse to deposit herself in one of the lawn chairs.

"Going under?" Arthur asked, without looking up.

"Power napping." She replied, smoothly. "Wake me up in fifteen minutes."

"Fine."

Ariadne relaxed, closed her eyes and tried to smooth her breathing to a consistent rate. Arthur's typing on the keyboard was distracting her from other thoughts, which made it easy to lose focus and sleep.

* * *

He knew the moment she had drifted off, because her breathing rate became steady and unwavering. He turned away from the computer to shoot her a glance; her eyelids were fluttering. He turned back to the computer and concentrated on the file spread across his desk, containing statistics about the mark's experience with the subconscious.

There was no record of any militarization of his mind, but that didn't mean Arthur wasn't going to just let that little detail go without some serious back-up. He'd missed the fact that Fischer's subconscious had been militarized, and it had almost gotten them killed. Arthur had spent the entire day searching for enough facts to back up this detail, and had so far come up with nothing. Either the mark—Kevin Pierce—hadn't been trained, or some one had done a hell of a job covering it up. He'd have liked to think it was the former, but he had no doubt he'd been working on this particular detail until he found some concrete facts. Cobb wouldn't let this one slide with just a "No record of any", and frankly, Arthur wasn't bout too, either.

The other details didn't matter quite so much, although he'd researched the guy's background thoroughly. There wasn't anything particularly special about him. He was around forty-one and had done a good job of pissing off his boss, who had hired the team to extract information Pierce had been using as blackmail to keep his job.

It was a big corporate mess, although safe enough. The company, no doubt, would not have the resources to track down the team if something went wrong. And anyway, the blackmail information was chiefly of mistresses and drug purchases—petty stuff. They'd been between jobs when the offer had appeared before them, and it would mean some fast, easy money, although the pay off from the Fischer job had been keeping them all going for a while.

They'd only taken it for the fact that it was the first job in a long time that had struck any of their interests. True, it might have been just as well handled by a less capable team, but Cobb had taken it "for the hell of it", as he said. Arthur hadn't liked his excuse, and had been doubting it for the two months they'd been on the job.

Pierce's boss, a man who went by "Mr. Big" (a word properly suited towards his ego) had said they could take all the time they needed, provided something didn't come up. As a result, they'd been working at a leisurely pace. Mr. Big hadn't contacted them for a few weeks now, which meant he wasn't complaining to Cobb about how slow things were going, which meant Pierce hadn't threatened to expose him recently.

Arthur turned back to the mark's file, and stared at the information, as though waiting for some sort of epiphany.

"Mr. Big" had provided them with enough information on the mark to make Arthur's job relatively easy. Eames was having a field day over it, as well. He spent quite a lot of time following the mark around and observing his mannerisms. Either that or he was stalking Mr. Big, learning _his _mannerisms—they hadn't needed him to forge into him, for the plan, but they decided it couldn't hurt. If worst came to worst and they needed to deviate, they would need some other options.

Arthur shook himself, and glanced at his watch. Approximately twenty five minutes had passed. He got up slowly, and made his way over to the lawn chair. He doubted he would disturb her just by walking by, but he moved quietly, just the same.

"Ariadne." He knelt by the lawn chair and shook her arm slightly. She mumbled slightly, but clearly hadn't woken. "Wake up." He grabbed her shoulder now, shaking it slightly more forcefully.

"I'm up, I'm up." She breathed, although she was still asleep. Arthur assumed the reaction was rote, from years of using it to deter her mother from trying to wake her up every school morning.

Despite the fact that she was asleep, and wouldn't hear him anyway, he replied "No, you aren't, Darling."

She didn't reply, in her sleep or otherwise.

"Ariadne." She stirred slightly at her name, and he gave up for the moment. He gave her a long look, as though trying to determine the best way to wake her up, and finally stood back up again. "Ariadne." He nearly shouted her name, and she woke, not with a start but by degrees, returning to consciousness slowly.

"Jesus, Arthur." Her voice was still thick from sleep. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Twenty minutes."

She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. "It feels like it's been hours."

He didn't reply, figuring her comment was rhetorical, only went back to his desk and acted as though the conversation had never happened. Ariadne sat up in the lawn chair and rubbed her face, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes.

"Do you ever dream, anymore?" She asked, suddenly. "I mean, without the PASIV."

"No." He replied, shortly. "I don't expect to, anymore. I mean, I suppose I still dream, but I have no recollection of dreams that aren't anesthesia-induced lucids."

"Oh." She said the word as though she more to say, but only got up from the lawn chair and crossed the room, stepped around her desk and stared uncomprehendingly at the model of the dream level she was working on .

"Why do you ask?" He finally prompted. She looked up sharply, her face a mask of confusion. It only took her a second or two for it to register what he had asked, and she shook her head.

"My mind keeps replaying the Fischer job."

"That's only expected."

Another sharp look: "I thought you couldn't dream."

He shook his head in reply. "Not anymore, but I dreamed about my first job repeatedly until they finally disappeared."

"Did—?" She bit her lip, as though she didn't want to ask, but decided she might as well finish her question. "Did it…turn out wrong? I mean, in your dreams about the job? Something went wrong and you couldn't do anything to fix it, because you were only observing it?"

He considered her question for a moment, remembering the last handful of dreams he'd ever experienced, then nodded slowly. "We'd been working with another extractor back then—Cobb and I. During the job, the other extractor—Anthony Dominguz—had fallen in with a nasty handful of projections. They didn't have guns on them or it would have been much easier, but they proceeded to beat the hell out of him. He was…well, to say in the least, he wasn't in any position to be dying any time soon, but he was obviously suffering."

Ariadne looked away, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "When I found him, I didn't even bother to pick off the projections. I just shot him, and Cobb and I finished off the job as fast as we could." He shrugged, although the gesture was clearly out of nerves, not nonchalance. "We managed to get it all finished up, and I got a fat paycheck and a business partner. But for weeks later, I had dreams where I was back on that job, trying to stop the projections from killing Anthony. Sometimes I'd find a gun in my hands, and I'd shoot him and he wouldn't wake up, like the shots did nothing but make it worse…"

He looked away and sighed in remorse, then turned back to the laptop, as though he hadn't just related an obviously traumatizing past experience.

"What happened to Anthony?"

"He got in on some rouge job and got back stabbed—and I mean that quite literally."

Ariadne winced. "When was that?"

"Five years ago."

"Twenty…one?" She raised an eyebrow, throwing out a guess at his age at the time.

"Twenty-two." He corrected. Both Ariadne's eyebrows shot up this time. He pretended not to notice. "I met Cobb back when I was twenty, but I didn't start working for him for two years, give or take."

"Why not?"

"Lets just say he wasn't interested in point man the organizational skills of a college student." Ariadne thought of her younger friend's dorms and laughed. She couldn't picture Arthur as ever being unorganized.

"So, how'd you convince him?"

He gave her an amused look and didn't reply. The moment of silence stretched on and she gave him a teasing look. "How?" She insisted.

He flipped a page in the file folder next to him and smirked. "It involved Mal."

"How so?"

"Aren't you just full of questions tonight?"

"I'm a student, I've been trained to ask as many questions as possible." She replied. It was a feeble response, but she didn't want to say something particularly scathing and get off topic. She got the feeling Arthur would take any tangent to get off the subject, although he seemed more amused than bothered by it.

"It's a long story."

"I've got time. And you're just stalling."

"Cobb didn't hire me right away," he began, launching into the story without warning. "But we kept in contact. He was interested to see where I would turn after college. In all honesty, I didn't have much idea. I think I was studying to be a lawyer, but it wasn't much interest to me. I liked the preciseness and the details it required, but I'll be the first to admit I lacked the imagination required for the job." He shrugged again, closed his laptop. "The next time I saw him again, he was with Mal…she got me into it. I'd love to see what she saw in me, but I never asked her. I guess she just assumed I was a kid with this one passion that you didn't often see in people my age—even then I was obsessed with dreams—and she took it for what it was."

Ariadne smiled. "You were into dreaming before you knew about the extraction business?"

"Yup." He shrugged. "I think I found out about it from a bunch of stoners in junior year of high school." He smirked, as though recalling a memory. "They were talking about…lucid dreaming as a hypothetical, and I started doing research on it."

"But by the time you meant Cobb, you must have been pretty good at it."

"Nah, I had no clue what I was doing."

Ariadne surveyed the man sitting across from her and considered it. "You...You accept things really easily. Things that don't necessarily make sense."

He nodded, as though expressing something unfortunate. "My conscience has this astounding ability to believe whatever my subconscious says is true. It makes non-drug-induced lucid dreaming pretty difficult."

Ariadne nodded knowingly. "So…what?" She twirled her finger in the air, a gesture telling him to finish the story.

"So I met Mal and Cobb for dinner and we discussed dreaming, and Mal asked Cobb why he hadn't mentioned me before. She said I'd be a valuable dreamer, considering my conscience was so stable in whatever reality it was occupying…next thing I know, Cobb's asking if I want to get into the Shared Dreaming business."

"And then?"

"And then Mal killed herself."

Ariadne backpedaled, obviously not expecting that twist. "What, like the next day?" She said sharply.

He scowled slightly at the absurdity. "No. It was a couple of months later. Cobb called me, asked me how badly I wanted to work in the business, and told me to meet him in Paris."

"Home base?"

"That's what it's become." He shrugged. "He didn't actually tell me anything, so you can imagine my surprise when I show up in Paris with the full expectations of some sort of grand dream sharing adventure, and find a man on the run for his life." He looked uneasy.

"Did you ask him if he killed Mal?" She asked, observing his expression and remembering her own encounter with Cobb. Arthur shook his head.

"I knew better. He couldn't have killed her. He was…enamored of her."

"So after you met up with him…"

"Nothing. We waited around and he found a bit of a niche in the black market, and another extractor to work with—Anthony—and we get our first job. Of course, it didn't go anything like I expected, but that's usually the case with dreams. You just never know."

"You knew it was illegal?"

"No, but I didn't bother to ask. It was all just some big grand adventure, until I had to shoot Anthony. I…" he stopped, searched for the memory and rubbed his forehead. "When the job was over, I took the money and ran, but I didn't get very far before I came back." He shot an amused glance at her and quoted: "'pure creation'. I couldn't resist."

"Pure creation…Except you weren't designing the dreams."

"No, Cobb was. That was the first time—Mal showed up, as you might have guessed, and he had no idea what the hell she was doing there. He tried a few more jobs, and she eventually moved from nuisance to threat, and we had to find new architects."

Ariadne nodded, and the spell that had been cast by the multiple narratives chronicling Arthur's history was broken. They both went back to work—Ariadne messing with the model of the second level, and Arthur returning to his research. The warehouse was once again silent, but for the clicking of keyboard keys.

Eventually, Ariadne nodded to herself, deciding she'd fixed the level model to her liking. She slid the model onto a shelf and drew a sheet of canvas over it.

"I can't stay awake any longer."

"If you give me two minutes, I'll walk with you back to the hotel." Arthur said, shortly, not looking up from his laptop.

"Sounds good." Ariadne yawned, stretched and watched as Arthur saved whatever he was doing and closed the laptop without turning it off. She gave him a knowing look. "If you're just going to come back to work after you bring me back to the hotel, I might as well leave you here."

"I'm not letting you walk through Rome at one AM alone."

"Well, then." Ariadne grabbed her bag and switched off the light illuminating her desk. "Lets go."

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**Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? **

**Also, sorry about the grammar/spelling/completely and utter failure mistakes I may have made. I'm not much on editing, although I did go through this chapter twice...but I probably missed a few things. **

**Anyway. Next chapter should be up sometime soon...when I've finished up all the homework I've been delaying. **

**Reviews for having already completed the entire story? :DD**


	3. Chapter 3

**one. I love how the word count is going down each chapter. I'm pretty sure this is the second shortest one I've written, however.**

**two. It's taken me a whole week to upload? Silly me. It was all that homework (I KNEW I should have been working on it instead of writing last weekend! Yay for pulling an allnighter the day before it's due!)**

**three. Ech-hem. I'm not sure what sort of mood I was in to have this whole fight between Ariadne and Arthur. I guess was figuring _Well, they already made-out in the first chapter/orginal one-shot, so I can't have them all lovey-dovey for the next twenty or so. _So forgive me, but...yeah. Hopefully they aren't too OOC. :/**

**four. Um. I still don't own Inception. I mean, you'd think I would by now, but... no [/dramatic sigh]**

**five. Long Author's Note is long. Thank you all for the reviews. I'd say 'It's what's keeping me going with the story!' but I can't, since I've written the entire thing. I _will,_ however, say that the reviews make my day. :D So Thank You. **

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About a week later, with the invisible deadline they had set up looming closer, Cobb had gathered them together to discuss the finer points of the job. Of course, they should have gone over the fine tuning long before then, but it wasn't complicated enough to merit much more than a basic plan with some flourishes on the more sketchy details.

As usual, Eames and Arthur were doing a very good job of annoying the hell out of each other, although this was more the former's work. Yusuf was only half listening—it was quite obvious by the way his eyes kept darting over to his desk that his mind was clearly still on his compounds, although they wouldn't be using very heavy sedatives this time around.

Ariadne, on the other hand, was listening intently, ready to make changes to her models at the drop of a hat, should the need arise that they needed a new staircase or extra offices in the second level—a exhibition for a computer microchip held in the lobby of an office building that resembled the mark's—or remove a row of seats from the plane that made up the first level.

She'd brought up the plane with Cobb a while back: she was used to designing buildings, not vehicles, and certainly not 747 airplanes. Cobb had assured her over her architectural prowess, saying she didn't have to worry about making it literally be able to fly—as long as it flew in that reality, she was fine. Which Ariadne had took to mean she'd have to convince Yusuf the model she'd built would be able to fly; he was the dreamer for the level.

"I know we've been over this countless times," Cobb rubbed his hands together and leaned up against the nearest desk: Eames's. "But I want to get it all ironed out." He shot a pointed glance at Eames, who had yanked Arthur's pen out of his hand and was twirling it around in his opposite hand, keeping it away from the point man despite the latter's best attempts to retrieve it.

"Yes, darling, we're all listening." Eames sounded bored, but Ariadne could tell he was paying attention, even if he was doing his best to pretend otherwise. Apparently, Cobb though so as well, because he continued.

"We start with the plane. Mr. Pierce is has a certain philia of flying, and his job requires a lot of it; he won't suspect a thing. The plane will lull him into the sense of security. Eames—" Cobb turned to the forger. "You'll be playing our Mr. Pierce's lovely escort to the exhibition. You'll have the seat next to him; just get him talking about it and set a date with him. In the next level, it'll be your job to keep him distracted."

"Of course." Eames had the look Ariadne had often seen him wear when he was about to pick up a girl he had met by chance on some random street corner in some random city: like a tiger on the hunt. It was almost fascinating, really. The man was a womanizer, almost without even trying.

Arthur shared a disgusted look with Ariadne, and she laughed.

"While you keep him…"

"Occupied." Eames offered.

"...Distracted," Cobb corrected, shooting him a warning glance. "Arthur and I will break into the vault Ariadne's created."

Ariadne nodded, quickly. "That sounds right. I've finished both of the levels—it just a matter of taking a tour of them. A couple days?" She offered a time frame for when her portion of the work should be completed. Cobb nodded and turned to Eames.

"I've got that lovely lady from the Fischer—"

"Eames." Cobb shot him another warning glance, and the forger leaned back in his chair, staring off in the distance as though running through his memories.

"Got one. Nice girl I met in Egypt. Exotic, attention grabbing, breasts like a—"

"Eames!" Ariadne snapped at the forger and he laughed cruelly, while Ariadne folded her arms in disgust.

"So, did you decide on this description before or after she refused your company?" Arthur said evenly.

"After." Eames said, quickly, without considering the entirety of Arthur's compound question. When he did, he snapped "Hey!" and glared at the point man.

"I don't care who you use, as long as you've haven't portrayed her before." Cobb replied, before adding "And don't stray from the plan. We're on a job, not your social calendar."

Eames snorted. "Please. Have you taken a good look at Pierce? He'd wouldn't even _be _on my social calendar."

They were quiet for a moment, while Cobb worked to regain the topic from the tangent on to which it had strayed. He turned to Yusuf. "The sedative?"

Yusuf nodded. "I actually had some time to experiment a little this time, and I've got the time setting the same, but without any nasty side affects of waking up in limbo."

Ariadne swiveled around in her seat to stare at him. "How did you engineer a sedative that you can wake up from? Doesn't that…defeat the purpose?"

"I never said you can _wake up_ from it."

"What?" She looked much more confused than she felt, if that was possible. "What happens if you get killed?"

"You wake up in the dream level above."

She gave him a long look, her eyebrows raised. "That's possible?"

"Obviously." Yusuf shot back. "It's a simple matter of—"

"Yusuf." Cobb glanced at the chemist, then at the ground, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, as though laughing at his own private joke. "'Simple' is subjective."

Yusuf sighed. "Right." He turned back to Ariadne. "Basically, it's a compound that will wake you up in the dream level above, while sticking to the same time frame as the compound we used for Fischer." He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, as though considering what he had just said, then added "It's perfectly safe, if that's what you're worried about."

"What-What happens if someone's killed in the first level?"

A shrug from Yusuf. Ariadne turned to shoot a horrified glance at Cobb. "You haven't tried it yet?"

"We have." Cobb confirmed. "The use of the compound is to prolong REM. If you die in the dream, you slip into the Delta stage of sleep."

"Which means…?"

"Which means while everyone else is waking up from the dream, you'll still be asleep, on the drugs, until someone comes and wakes you...or until you slip completely out of the sleep cycle and wake up on your own a few hours later."

Ariadne stared at him, then turned to the others, who all wore expressions of complete faith and belief in what Cobb was saying. "Why did Yusuf say you haven't tried it?" she asked.

"I never said that." Yusuf replied. Ariadne shot a warning glance at him and Cobb interrupted before she could say anything.

"I understand your cause for concern," He said calmly. He was trying to convince her she'd be fine, although she figured she and Yusuf had the right to be the most worried—If something went wrong, they'd be the first to end up…wherever they did, as a result of the compound. "If you don't want to go under—"

"Of course I want to go under!" Ariadne shot back, quickly. "I just want to get some specifics."

Arthur looked down at his shoes, then glanced guiltily at Ariadne and said "About that."

Cobb glanced over at the point man, raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. Arthur gave Ariadne another guilty look that she was afraid to interpret much beyond that, and returned his gaze to Cobb. "I don't want Ariadne in the dream."

Cobb didn't get a chance to reply, because Ariadne began to protest vehemently.

"What are you talking about! You have no right to decide whether or not I should be a part of this job or not." She turned back to Cobb. "You're not going to agree with him are you?" Her expression clearly said if he did, there would be hell to pay. She glanced back at Arthur, then back to Cobb, her face a mask of uncertainty and anguish. "Are you?"

"Arthur?" Cobb asked, calmly.

"Oh, you can't be serious." Ariadne stood up, misinterpreting Cobb's question, and turned to glare at Arthur. "Thanks."

"Sit down, Ariadne. I just want to hear the reasoning behind his request."

"Request?" Arthur said scathingly. "It's not a request."

"Excuse me?" Ariadne interrupted. Eames shot Arthur a puzzled look, and even Yusuf seemed confused as to why Arthur had suggested it.

"It's a known fact that the job is in jeopardy if the architect is part of the dream. The Fischer job was a…" he looked away from Cobb while he searched for a good description, before settling on "extraordinary circumstance." Cobb gave no indication as to whether he accepted the term or not, and Arthur continued. "Not only that, but she's a liability—"

Without another word, Ariadne stood up and stormed out of the warehouse, ignoring the ominous silence that followed her out. Her thoughts revolved around half a dozen intricate curse words directed towards a certain point man's name. _Is this his idea of protecting me? _She wondered.

The team watched her go, then Cobb turned to glare at Arthur. "She'll be back." He assured the four of them—himself included—using the words he'd used when she'd run off after the first dream session. He gave Arthur another long glance. "Did you want to discuss what the hell all that was about, though?" His voice was hostile; clearly he thought there had been some sort of strife between the point man and the architect.

"I can tell you," Eames said moodily.

"Shut up." Arthur murmured from the corner of his mouth.

Cobb, however, had heard him. He raised an eyebrow, indicating the forger should explain. Eames leaned back in his chair and tucked his hands behind his head, completely relaxed; unable to hold back the gossip. He sighed nonchalantly, as though trying to come up with the perfect way to word it.

"Let's just say this time it was Aphrodite and not Athena who paid a visit to our little weaver, Ariadne."

Arthur scowled. "Wrong Myth. You're thinking of Arachne."

"Oh, was that it?" Eames sounded innocent. Unfortunately, he'd gotten his point across.

"Arthur?" Cobb asked. "You mind explaining that?" It was clear he knew exactly what Eames was talking about. Arthur glared at Eames, then said "You weren't supposed to know."

"I wasn't supposed to know about what?" Cobb glared at his point man, who stood up.

"I'm not discussing this. Eames can tell you whatever the hell he likes." He said, before taking after Ariadne and storming out of the warehouse. Cobb turned to Eames, who gave him his innocent _Now wasn't that fun?_ smile. He raised an eyebrow and Eames's smile widened.

"You should have seen those two love birds. They're completely—" He stopped when he realized Cobb wasn't listening; he had turned away and headed for his desk. Eames slammed his hands down on the arms of his chair with finality, and shot a glance at Yusuf.

"This isn't about Mal, is it, Cobb?" His voice carried across the warehouse, but the extractor didn't reply. Yusuf returned Eames's glance with a particularly uneasy one, then turned back to his own work.

"Jesus." Eames mumbled.

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**Hm...is it just me, or does it seem like I went trigger happy with the question mark whenever I was writing Cobb's dialouge? o_O**

**Anyway. I read through the chapter a couple of times, but I probably missed some mistakes; feel free to point them out. **

**Side note: When I first found out the architect's name was 'Ariadne' (before I had seen the movie) my first thought was 'Oh, the girl who wove the tapestries and dueled Athena!'...which sort of makes sense, I guess, what with her weaving tapestries/creating worlds. And then I found out it was Arachne, not Ariadne, that I was thinking of, and the name Ariadne makes much more sense in the story anyway. But I thought it would be fun to make Eames as clueless as I was. :P**

**Reviews for Mistaken Mythology? :3**


	4. Chapter 4

**Huh. I could have sworn I said the word count per chapter would start to level out, but it's still going down. *shrug* Whatever.**

**So. I finally updated the story... life got really busy after I uploaded the first few chapters, and I hadn't gotten around to adding the rest. Anyway, here it is.**

**Short authors note is short.**

**Christopher Nolan still owns _Inception._ :/**

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Ariadne flung her way into her hotel room and threw her thin frame down on the crisply made bed. She let the notebook and pencil she'd been holding in a death grip for the entire walk slip from her fingers and flop to the floor. Her bag was still at the warehouse.

She groaned and rolled over, pounded her fists a couple of times into the pillow and swore again. Goddamn him. Who did he think he was, suggesting (or demanding?) that she didn't take part in the dream? She knew it was rare for Architects to be in on the action of the jobs, but she figured she was much more than an architect. She was an accomplished dreamer, with some excellent capabilities, and intricate suggestions that (she'd have to remind the team) had saved their lives and work, back on the Fischer Job. Who the _hell _was he to say he didn't want her along on this one?

A knock on her door surprised her, and she immediately figured it was either Cobb, Eames or Arthur. If it was the first two, she'd talk to them. If it was Arthur, she'd slam the door in his face.

She slipped off the bed and padded to the door, throwing the deadbolt chain and unlocking it. It only opened part of the way before the chain caught it, and she surveyed Arthur through the small crack of the door for about three seconds, before shutting the door in his face.

"Ariadne," He called, his voice muffled. She stepped back from the door, but otherwise didn't move. "Goddamit, Ariadne, open the door." He didn't sound angry. He sounded calm, like some shrink asking her "And how do you feel about that?"...although he still managed to make it sound suave.

"No." She said in reply. The word hardly slipped from her tongue, it was so quiet. He knocked again. "I have nothing to say to you, Arthur."

"You're not just going to hide in your room until the Job is over."

"Who says I'm not? You have your precious—" She whipped open the door, keeping the chain in place, so he could hear her better. "You have your precious dream levels, and that's all you need me for." She hissed. He stared.

"We both know why I suggested you don't take part in this job."

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "I have some idea, but if I'm right, then you're a bigger idiot than I thought you were."

"I don't want anything to happen to you—"

"You _are_ a bigger idiot than I thought you were." She scoffed. "How the hell could I get hurt? His subconscious isn't militarized, he's a no account businessman with no connections to anyone who would hunt us down—" '_He'_ referred quite obviously to the mark.

"I didn't mean just this job." Arthur shot back. "I meant every job. This one isn't so bad—although, if we screw up, the guy who hired us is most likely going to hunt us down—but they can be worse. I want to keep you safe—"

"Shut up, Arthur." She said. They stared at each other in silence, and Arthur ducked his head. Ariadne was almost immediately swamped with feelings of guilt, which she tried to suppress.

"Cobb's still going to let you be part of the dream."

"We both knew he would." Ariadne shot back, even though, in all honesty, she hadn't been sure. "Why the hell did you bring it up in the first place?"

Arthur sighed. "I'm not talking with the threat of you slamming the door in my face again."

Ariadne groaned and shut the door, threw the chain off the door and opened it again. "Talk."

He started to open his mouth but he didn't get a chance to say anything because Ariadne interrupted him, obviously still not satisfied with everything she had told him so far: "You must have known bringing it up with Cobb would frustrate me, and yet you still did it. _That's_ what I don't get, Arthur! Why couldn't you have told me about it first, and then asked to bring it up with Cobb?"

Arthur didn't reply, for the moment. When he finally spoke again, his voice was thick. "I couldn't _tell_ you first. What the hell was I supposed to say? 'Ariadne, I'm going to speak with Cobb about making sure you're not going to be doing anything in the dream this time around'?"

"Anything would have been better than bringing it up while we were trying to discuss the job." She gave him an incredulous look. "You couldn't have waited?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. It was a split second idea and I obviously made the wrong decision."

"Is that an apology?" She seethed.

"I'm not _apologizing _for wanting to keep you safe."

"Well, you just came up with a hell of a good idea for it, didn't you?" She could feel herself starting to get all worked up—quite obvious by the heavy use of sarcasm she'd employed-and had to resist the urge to slam the door in his face again.

"Do you want me to say I should have come to you first?" Arthur shot back in reply. "Is that all you want? _Fine. _I should have brought it up with you first. For whatever reason, that seems to make some sort of difference to you."

Ariadne had yet to see Arthur mad. She thought he'd been calm and collected on the Fischer job, but now she realized he might have been furious for one reason or another, and she wouldn't have seen it: Arthur being mad was the exact same as Arthur being bored, or happy, or—whatever. Excepting the fact that his tone was loaded with venom, he may have just been explaining something about the the art of extraction to her.

"That's not what I want." She replied, just as scathingly.

He looked off down the hallway, clearly trying to maintain his composure. "You're running your conversation around in circles, and I still haven't figured up why you're so upset, if that's not the reason."

"I'm upset because—" In all honesty, she fully expected to finish the sentence, since she had a million reasons running through her head. Once she opened her mouth however, they all evaporated like a marine layer in the sunlight. Why was she mad? Because she didn't want him treating her like a child? That seemed too feeble an excuse. Besides, she couldn't bring that up—they'd most likely get into another fight again. Instead of finishing her thought, she cut to a new one: "Are you worried for my safety, or are you worried we'll end up like Cobb and Mal?"

She said the last word so quietly that she was nearly inaudible. Arthur met her gaze for a moment, then looked away.

"Both, maybe." He said quietly.

"I don't see how keeping me out of dreams will prevent us from ending up like Mal and Cobb." She said, before realization dawned on her. "You want to cut me out of the business entirely."

He lifted his chin, ever so slightly, as though to ward off her defiance. Ariadne balled her hands into fists, and refused to get mad. "Didn't you?" She said stonily.

"You built a dreamscape for me-us. A _Dreamscape. _You realize we'd probably deteriorate in limbo faster than Cobb and Mal did?"

Ariadne considered his words and shook her head. "So lets just make sure to stay out of limbo." She said, simply, before adding "Besides, you'd never let yourself get lost down there."

"Maybe alone, no." Arthur stared her down, letting her discover the meaning behind his words. She watched him carefully.

"You're afraid of…what? Losing me?"

"Losing everything." He corrected. "Losing you, losing myself. Cobb mixed up his job and his life, and as a result, Mal killed herself."

"But he didn't _lose_ himself." Ariadne shot back. Arthur raised an eyebrow, clearly ready to make her think otherwise.

"No?" He asked, quietly. "Think back. Cobb on the Fischer job."

She wanted to reply, but she couldn't: her mind had flung it's way back through recent memory: Cobb's face when he asked Ariadne how she knew Mal wasn't real. How he'd stayed late at the warehouse, dreaming of Mal. The train in the street.

"He didn't lose himself." She repeated, quietly.

"Lucky him." Arthur said sharply.

"You think that'll be what happens to us if I stay in the business?"

A trace of uneasiness flickered across his face. "I don't know. I'm hoping not, but it'd be safer if-"

She set her expression and said "I'm going to be part of this job. You can't say anything or do anything that will get me to stop doing my job. I like this work, Arthur. I trust Cobb, and I trust you—we'll be fine. There's no way I could get so far into dreaming that I wouldn't want to return to reality."

"Ariadne, you're the architect: you're the one person on the team who is most likely to get lost in the dream reality, wanting to build and cretate without the constraints of reality..."

She shook her head. "I'd be fine. Dream architecture is the most beautiful thing to design, but I can't fall into belief of something that I know will disappear when I wake up…and I wouldn't want to live my life in such an intangible world."

Arthur sighed, but didn't reply. "I'll take that as… I'm forgiven, but you're not going to stay out of the job?"

"Or the business." She added quickly. Arthur sighed.

"Just…stay in the first level." He said, quietly.

She nodded. "I'm not going to deviate from the plan just because I'm upset that you don't seem to think I can take care of myself." She meant for him to reply to her remark, and he fell for the bait.

"I never said you couldn't take care of yourself."

"But you're afraid I'll lose myself in some warped reality, or live my life on the run because some corporation is pissed that we screwed up on a job? I guess that doesn't count in taking care of myself? Of everyone on this team, Arthur, I think I'm the safest. No one's going to come after the _architect_, and I'm not about to trade reality for dreams."

"I can't argue with you anymore." Arthur sighed, rubbing his forehead, and then running a hand through his hair.

"Then you shouldn't have even tried." Ariadne raised her eyebrows and shut the door.

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**I don't really like this chapter... I mean, it was fun to write, but the dialouge seems slightly...off (and the characters seem a bit OOC to me).**

**Oh, well. Practice makes perfect. (And it was fun to write.)**

**Apology for any gramatical/spelling/general mistakes. I have a general, overall dislike of editing that I've been trying to fix. **


	5. Chapter 5

**So. Word count still going down, updates still taking forever...what else is new?**

**However, during a particularly long and boring evening spent listening to the testimonies and berating of particularly stubborn witnesses at Mock Trial, I managed to convert the one long Document I have of this entire story into seperate documents, one per chapter. In other words, I now have the story all ready for uploading. No more copy-paste-and-saving. Yay! :D**

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Ever since Ariadne and Arthur had stormed out, the team had been on rather strained relationships with each other. They worked quickly, but lacked any enthusiasm they might have managed before then. Plans were discussed without embellishment, and conversations were chiefly of the Mark or the Job or a particular detail about a dream level.

Two days after Ariadne had stormed out, she found herself in the first dream level, walking through the many divisions of the airplane with Yusuf, explaining each detail to him. He'd been the dreamer, so it was up to him to make certain changes where she requested them.

"You designed it to fly, right?" He asked uneasily, glancing out one of the windows in the coach section.

"Of course." She bit her lip uncomfortably, knowing she hadn't, but not letting him know that. "I taught that part to you, remember?"

Obviously his subconscious had prodded forward a memory of it, because he nodded. She wanted to tell him that even if it actually _couldn't _fly, he'd be able to keep it aloft by knowing it could, but she didn't want to compromise his understanding of the dream level: If he believed it would fly, it would stay aloft.

They strode single file down the aisle, and Ariadne inspected the cabin from the front of it. "This looks good. We're not going to be using it much, but it's important to keep the details up."

"If you don't mind me asking—how'd you create the closed loops on this level?"

"No need. The doors and windows can't open, obviously. The only loop is the sky out there." She pointed to the windows, which showcased a beautiful display of clouds and blue sky. "If someone were to go parachuting out of the plane…they'd just keep falling, repeatedly, into the same airspace. Closed loop."

Yusuf's eyebrows rose in ah. "Very nice."

"Thank you. To business class?" She made her way through a break area for the flight attendants, and slipped into the next cabin.

"We keep calling this a 747, but it's not," She gestured to the rows of seats, then began to make her way through the cabin. "This type of plane doesn't actually exist, since I'm not supposed recreate from memory."

"But it will fly?"

Ariadne sighed. "Yes."

[ - ]

It was almost complete silence while she showed Arthur the intricacies of the second level. The lobby, where the main portion of the exhibition party was going to take place, was a stunning mix of red and gold trappings, spread through modern architectural structures of glass and clean metal. It would have reminded her of the second Level of the Fischer job, except this had much more colour and personality.

They took the elevator up to the offices above. The mark's office was on the second, which was where Ariadne had placed the safe. It was only too easy to get to, with the second door on the right of the hallway, immediately after exiting the elevator.

While she explored the room Arthur had created from her designs, he watched her without comment.

Finally, she turned around and said "Well…certainly easier than dropping us in zero gravity, isn't it?"

"Since I won't have to drop anyone at all this time around, yes, I'm sure it'll be easier." He said stonily. Ariadne smiled warily. She wanted to say something about their fight to him, but she couldn't bring herself to; she merely turned around and headed back for the elevator. They headed back down to the lobby and waited patiently for the kick. They'd asked Eames to give them a half hour or so, in dream time, and it was getting dangerously close to that. They only had another couple of minutes left.

Ariadne deposited herself in one of the arm chairs on the outer rim of the room, and stared at the architecture.

"I think I prefer this to the plane."

"Don't you dare suggest coming down here—" Arthur turned around to give her an unexpected glare.

Her jaw dropped. "That was the last thing on my mind! I'm just saying—"

"If that's all." He turned away from her again, and headed over to the sweeping staircase that lead up to an indoor overhang-slash-balcony containing a podium. A person standing behind the podium could address everyone on the lobby floor, nearly fifty feet below them.

"Arthur—!" Ariadne got up and stormed over to the point man. She wasn't furious, she told herself. She was tired of how he was treating her, as though any interaction more than that which was required would set off a land mine. He hadn't talked to her about anything but the dream levels since their encounter in the hotel two days before.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you have to be this way?" She reached over and shoved her hands against his chest, making him stumble back. Had she expected him to react? She wasn't sure. She just wanted some sort of response from him that was stoic and scripted. "Why do you have to act like you have the emotional range of a brick wall?"

He blinked. "Ariadne, we've been over this. I refuse to mix business with my life."

"Well, I'm part of your life and I'm part of job, so I guess that's out of your hands, isn't it?" Ariadne shot back. "You're a piece of work, you know that? I love how you can just hide your emotions with the blink of an eye. But that's just it: you're hiding them. They're still there, you're just doing the only thing you know how to make sure they don't interfere with your job." She balled her hands into fists and wondered, half heartedly, where Eames was with the kick. "What happened to the Arthur who bought me those flowers? Or was that supposed to be bribery to keep me out of the business?"

"Obviously at the time I didn't realize how dangerous it was to mix things up."

Ariadne felt like she could go on another tirade, but another moment and she felt the energy sapping out of her. "I don't know if I'll want to work with you after this." She said, quietly.

Which, was, of course, his very intention.

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**Reviews? I love reviews. :D **


	6. Chapter 6

**...Okay, I'm just going to stop talking about how the word count is going down. '^ ^**

**But at least I updated the story! Yaaay! I can't wait to post it all, because that will make it th efirst fanfiction story I've actually finished (and completely posted online).**

**Anyway. A bit of a filler chapter, to get some dialogue between Eames and Ariadne, it seems. Huh. Well, it was amusing to write, even if Eames seems a bit to serious about the whole thing. Gah! He needs more humor!**

**Yeah. Still don't own Inception. But I did download the entire soundtrack to my iPod. Because I'm an addict like that. Yay! :D**

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The kick came only moments later, but they both knew immediately it was rather late—especially after when the two of them came around on the floor, to see Eames giving them his innocent smile. "Sorry about that, Darlings. Quite forgot the kick."

Ariade knew immediately he had thought they must have been down there in the dream making up with each other—this was evident by the fact that when she got to her feet and stalked away without giving Arthur anything but a cold glare, Eames looked perplexed.

She ignored him, only shot a glance at the model on her desk, ran through her memory of what Arthur had created, and nodded in satisfaction, before slipping the model up on to a shelf behind her desk. When she turned back around, Eames was leaning over her desk with a look that clearly told her he wanted to hear what had happened in the dream.

"What? Nothing." She replied quickly. He gave her a confused look.

"Love, I didn't say anything."

"You were going to." She replied. "Nothing happened."

"Nothing happened…when?"

"You know what I'm talking about." She said, shortly, surveying his face. He raised an eyebrow, and she back-pedaled. Maybe he hadn't been looking for the details of Arthur and Ariadne's rocky relationship. Maybe he _had _only forgotten to give them the kick. Had she been so wrapped up in it all that she'd assumed everyone else was, as well? Ariadne sighed and rubbed her eyes.

"Sorry—what did you want?"

"I was going to ask you if you wanted a lesson in forgery, just in case, but—"

"Eames, I'd love it, but honestly, I don't think I'm going to be in the business much longer if Arthur has any say in." She smiled mirthlessly and Eames's eyebrows shot up. Ariadne bit her tongue, immediately wishing she could take back her words. She was looking for someone to take out her frustration on, but she shouldn't have said anything to Eames.

"He's not still wrapped up in that?"

She blinked. "Yes, actually he is. And I don't know…" She lowered her voice. "I don't know if I can choose between Arthur and this job."

Eames turned around and shot a glance at the point man, who wasn't paying them any attention; he was at his desk, obviously not hearing anything they were saying. The forger turned back to Ariadne.

"You should hear him talk." Eames gestured with his chin back to Arthur's desk.

Ariadne looked away and sighed. "Yeah, because I want to hear him tell me how it's not safe, how we could end up like Mal and Cobb more than he already does."

Eames gave her another confused look and shook his head, as though she had it all wrong. "Is that what he's telling you? The prick—" he stopped himself and sighed. "He's afraid you're wasting your life away at this dreaming business, and not giving yourself other options."

Ariadne gave him a blank look. "So, once again, he's trying to control my life."

"My God, Ariadne, you're worse than he is at listening to what I'm trying to tell you." Eames groaned, started to turn away, and then thought better of it. "Arthur is absolutely infatuated with you. It's like high school all over again."

"He has a shit way of showing it." Ariadne said fiercely. Eames raised an eyebrow and she bit her lip.

"He just wants whats best for you—"

"He has no idea whats _best _for me!"

"And you don't either." Eames shot back in reply. "He's trying to give you other options."

Ariadne leaned in confidentially and glared at Eames. "I don't want _other_ options. I want Arthur, and I want this job."

Eames leaned in as well and said "Well then, darling, I do believe those are your options."

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**Short chapter is short. Forgive me for mistakes. I found a huge one which I did my best to correct... and now I'm crossing my fingers that the part I took out doesn' affect the rest of what was written. I don't think it does, but whatever. **

**Review?**


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